Luis de Morales

Collection of Don Gonzalo Ulloa y Ortega Montañés, Conde de Adanero (1833 – 1882);

Thence by family descent to the present owner.

On loan to the Prado Museum for a period of time during the first half of the 20^th century (precise dates unknown).

This jewel-like painting by Morales is an outstanding example of the artist’s representation of La Virgen del Sombrero, or La Virgen de la Gitana, an iconography associated with the circular gipsy hat worn by the Virgin, signalling her humble origins. The painting enjoys a highly distinguished provenance, having formed part of the great collections assembled in Spain by the Conde de Adanero during the second half of the 19^thcentury, and it remains in the collection of his descendants to this day.

The picture forms part of a small but coherent group of works of this particular iconography by Morales, the majority of which display various changes to the design, underlining the high degree of creativity invested in each by the master from Badajoz. Perhaps the finest version of the La Virgen del Sombrero by Morales is a painting formerly in the collection of the Earls of Clarendon that is believed to have been acquired by George Villiers, 4^th Earl of Clarendon (1800 – 1870) during his ambassadorship in Madrid in 1833-39, and was sold in these rooms, 8 December 2010, lot 3 for £1,609,250 (see Fig. 1). Although of larger dimensions than the present work (measuring 66.5 by 46 cm.) the overall pose of the Virgin and Child shares much in common with our version, the Christ Child being held tenderly by His mother, with His right arm around her and both figures looking directly out to engage the viewer. The compositional type recalls the works of Raphael and the sfumato modelling reveals the enduring influence of the work of Leonardo and his followers on Morales’ work. Yet this imprint of the great Italian High Renaissance masters on the Extremaduran artist’s style is fused with a Flemish idiom, no doubt imparted to Morales largely through his master Peter Kempeneer, through his use of meticulous brushwork, visible particularly in the treatment of the fine hair of the figures, as well as the use of delicate strands of gilding to adorn the hat of the Virgin, which remarkably remain largely intact to this day.

Another painting belonging to the same group by Morales is a Virgen del Sombrero sold Madrid, Sala Retiro, 20 December 2012, lot 649, for €550,000, which is similar in scale to the present work (40 by 28.5 cm.), and likewise was produced as a small panel for private devotion, for use perhaps in a home or a small private chapel. Here however the Christ Child does not embrace His mother as in the present and ex-Clarendon versions, but rather contemplates a cross that he holds in His right hand, in a pose that recalls (in reverse) Leonardo’s Madonna of the Yarnwinder, in reference to His forthcoming sacrifice.¹

Morales often repeated the same models in his paintings, which in all probability were taken from life. The facial features of the Virgin in the present work recur in the depiction of the beautiful figure holding a basket of fruit on the right side of the artist’s painting of The Birth of the Virgin sold in these rooms, 10 July 2003, lot 41, for £588,000 and today in the Prado Museum (see Fig. 2).

Sometime during the second half of the 19^th century the present work entered into the great collections assembled by Don Gonzalo Ulloa y Ortega Montañés, Conde de Adanero (1833 – 1882). The collection, based in Cordoba, included a large collection of important Old Masters by the likes of Velázquez, El Greco, Zurbarán and Goya, and also included at least one other Virgin and Child by Morales, a painting today in the Fundación Fondo Cultural Villar Mir, Madrid.

1. See the exhibition catalogue, Leonardo da Vinci, London, National Gallery, 9 November – 5 February 2012, pp. 294-5, no. 88, reproduced.